A Letter for 2026

A letter to myself

Dear Me,

This year is not about proving anything. It is about staying.

You have spent a long time moving through days by managing what hurts, what flares, what needs tending. In 2026, the work is quieter. It is learning how to remain present without bracing for impact, how to live without preparing to disappear.

Healing will still happen, not loudly and not all at once. It will show up as fewer explanations, fewer apologies, and a little more room inside your own body. By March, you will practice ending your days earlier at least three nights a week, even when the urge to keep pushing feels justified. Rest will count as something done.

You will keep writing, because writing is how you listen, but it will no longer be used to extract meaning too quickly. By January 31, you will set aside one notebook or file that is not for shaping, sharing, or submission. Between February and December, you will write one page a week there. No fixing. No polishing. By the end of the year, there should be at least fifty pages that exist because you stayed long enough to hear yourself.

This year, you will not be afraid to show up as you. Not the improved version. Not the easier one. Just the one who is here. You will share what you create without explaining or softening it first at least once a month, even when it feels unfinished.

When words are hard to find, you will stop treating that as failure. You will give yourself 24 hours before trying to narrate or make sense of what happened. Silence will be allowed to do its work.

You will pay attention to what steadies you, not what looks productive or earns approval. By April, you will identify five practices that reliably make your days quieter rather than sharper, and you will return to that list when you forget.

You will read slowly this year. A few books. A few poems. By June, you will have read six pieces carefully, without rushing toward comparison. You will write a brief reflection after each one, not as critique, but as acknowledgment.

And you will remind yourself of this, as often as necessary: even when survival was messy, it was still survival. You are not required to shrink because of it. You are allowed to take up space and be met as you are.

By the end of 2026, nothing needs to be resolved. The goal is simpler: to feel less afraid of your own weight, to trust your timing more than your fear, and to live with more room inside yourself than you started with.

That is growth. That is achievable. That is enough.



Word Count: 598